Who would have thought, even in the 25th era, that there would be a year where we are getting at least three Jinx figures?

Dosk01

Maybe I’ll be bad mouthed for what I’m about to say but WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!!! Is that the best Hasbro has? Where’s Flint, Lady Jaye and Firefly. Is Zartan suddenly a zombie? Does Clutch have no articulation? What the HELL is that thing that Duke is carrying? And really an AWE Striker and Water Moccasin oh please, you have got to be kidding me. I truly hope that these are NOT the figures from the movie. I would rather see figures based on the actual Joes that they have shown in the trailers rather than some sci-fi knock off show. Rise of Cobra had its woes but the figures from it were spot on and awesome, if this is the best retalitation can do….oh my!

EVERYONE CALM DOWN. That’s better. Now, let’s THINK about this before we react. The movie line of figures is for the mass market not collectors and who are those masses ? Kids ! And when you were a kid what were your favorite Joe and Cobra figures ? 90% of you will say Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. This line of figures is for a new generation to embrace Joe and most kids gravitate towards the ninja stuff, so I get it. And while you guys are complaining about the vehicle drivers lack of articulation, you seem to be overlooking the awesome Storm Shadow and Red Ninja figures. And how about that camo painted version of the Rock as Roadblock ! Chunk the spring loaded missle launcher and give him the silver and black heavy machine gun from the ROC desert pack of Joes and let him kick A$$. New Night Force anyone ? How about best Cobra Commander EVER anyone ? (I admit I used the Interrogator as CC back in the day so this is a perfect hybrid of the 2 styles). And I LOVE the “Ninja” jeep that will become a Coyote for my Renegades. A Cobra trooper with a cool parachute, a futuristic but believable Duke, an awesome little jet in the Ghost Hawk II, a GREAT upgrade to the HISS (I can totally see my Resolute Destro sitting in that gun turret). I could go on and on and we haven’t even seen a Bruce Willis Joe Colton or Adrianne Palicki Lady Jaye yet (you know it’s coming). And finally the trailer alone for this flick is more entertaining than the entire first film. All I can say is YO JOE !!!!!

Dosk01

OK, I’ve taken a deep breath and have seen the new figs from the toyfair. The HISS has a nice body shape and I like the new style canopy and some of the other vehicles have potential but the figures… I understand the cost cutting but I wonder if this is really the time to do it. GI Joe did this in the 90’s and died in Australia for it and I’m sure suffered in the States too. Re-hashing body parts is fine for 30th anniversary and 7 packs but for a movie where you have a design to copy off, they should all be new molds which subsequent releases can then copy. I’m not thrilled at the new line. I hope that this move does revive GI Joe and doesn’t kill it.

Joe Stewart

Now that Toy Fair is over; I am not impressed. In fact I am starting to look fondly on ROC and I was not a fan of ROC 100%. Would it hurt Hasbro to make something N*E*W for K*E*Y characters. And the COLORS?????? WTF is it 1993 again?
And look at the HISS, it has been striped and added to and I bet you the price point will go up to $30+ and not that I will ever be able to get the SDCC Hiss (thanks BigBadToyStore and the like) but i can see them charging $75-$100 at the con for it.
WAVE 1 has 7 new figs that i can see of the 8 coming.
WAVE 2 has 5 out of 5 new figs that i can tell.
WAVE 3 has 5 repaints and two of them are KEY characters.
WAVE 4 has 2 figs(?WTF?) one we see in another wave and another a repaint.
WAVE 5 I cant tell is these are new “bucks” –
Alpha Scale Wave 1 2 repaints and 1 new mold –
Bravo Scale Wave 1 wait what? a repaint/kitbash from POC & 2 repaint/kitbashes from the 1980s???? –
Delta Scale Wave 1 has POC & 2 repaint/kitbashes and the O*N*L*Y new item.

all this shows to me is that Hasbro has no real faith with the movie and is trying to limit its effort

Monkeybrains

I suspect there will be more figures in waves 4 and 5. They just haven’t made them yet.
I hope it makes it to 5 waves… Tf movie line just cancelled the last wave.

Joe Stewart

I call BS on this, HASBRO knows & counts on the fact that adults know the brands (SW, TF, MARVEL, etc) and out of nostalgia (nostalgia = $$$$$) will buy them for their kids, and if all of this was just for kids, they would not care about doing an overpriced repainted tank for Comic Con

Dr_Syn

Not even sure these are getting an NZ release.

I look forward to your reviews Justin, and hopefully getting some into my collection.

Obatu1000

Is it me or does Clutch look like a young Fidel Castro? Or at least what we picture some Jungle dictator to look like from the movies.

Erik

In case you haven’t been paying attention, GIJoe is NOT a big seller right now. It’s not Hasbro that lacks faith, it’s retailers. I’m sure you’ve noticed how hard it is to find GIJoe stuff right now. Retailers just don’t care about GIJoe at this time and Hasbro can’t afford to take a huge gamble right now because of it. They have to try and lay some groundwork in order to rebuild GIJoe into something that retailers and consumers care about. Unfortunately that means lots of reused parts and cutting some minor articulation points on some single packed figures and limited articulation on vehicle drivers. It’s a necessary evil until GIJoe becomes a hit again.

Erik

What they do for SDCC and what they do for the retail market are completely separate things. The Shockwave HISS and the Jinx figures are for us. What they sell at Wal-Mart is for kids. This should not be a surprise to anyone.

Primeop

I thought the movie line would be a break from buying Joes except for getting Roadblock Rock and Bruce Willis. Dang, was I completely wrong. It’s disappointing to see that the articulation has been dropped in a few figures, but the sculpts look good and I’m sure some simple custom work could fix any minor gripes I have. It looks like they’ve tried a mix of things we’ll see in the movie and interesting designs that old and new fans could be interested in. I’m grateful to get any Jinx figure at retail since it looked like she’d only be a SDCC exclusive.

The Blind Master figure is a must-buy for me since he’s loaded with gear from Shaw Brothers Kung-Fu flicks. He has the Gold Element hat from Chinese Super Ninjas, a Five Deadly Venoms training mask and something that looks like the Flying Guillotine.

Dusty Ayers

So your basic premise is that a highly successful limited articulation line will tell Hasbro to start producing a high articulation line?

Ryan(Mapleleaf) Hildebrand

I think that we all should be glad that they only did one test figure for “spring-loaded weapon integration”. One of the biggest complaints in RoC was the spring loaded weapons and how they were unusable to the majority of the line. I think Hasbro took those complaints to heart and is testing the waters on the wave one Roadblock figure to remedy the issue. It a good attempt but in my opinion should be left alone, unless there is a hand swap feature.I think with out that, Hasbro will have taken a major step backward in regards of quality. But on the good side of things Justin wouldn’t have to hear Chuck complain about figures not holding weapons again on WOJM, even if there is other things to complain about. But over all in all seriousness the molded weapon-inhand hand could really hurt with out a swap out. Other then that I’m looking forward to seeing these figures in hand. Especially John McClain..err I mean Joe Colton.

It’s so amusing that when The Rise of Cobra toys were released, the most common complaint aside from actor likenesses was, “They’re all wearing black! It looks like they’re wearing movie X-Men uniforms! G.I. JOE toys should have more color!” Then the sequel toys come along with more color, and we get, “What’s with all the color? Are we back in the ’90s? It was all the colors that killed the brand back then!”

Hilarious.

Erik

Hasbro doesn’t NEED to be told anything. They now damn well what we want and what we don’t want. But the retailers have to be convinced that GIJoe will sell and sell well in order for what we want to be produced. If anyone needs to be toldanything, it’s the retailers. People really need to let go of this ridiculous notion that Hasbro is oblivious to what it is that we want and that any decisions they make are because they don’t care or are just trying to piss us of.

Ryan(Mapleleaf) Hildebrand

Just looking at the image of the Flint. just wondering if the beret was removable.

Jacob Casey

Dude I suggest you only get the cobra trooper and gi joe trooper I agree 100% they are raping gi joe the only cool looking figures are snake eyes, roadblock and joe colt, and a few others I cannot believe hasbro But I guess they want kids to play with these as they are supposed to Like me Im thirteen but i collect them I love gijoe but I probably will only buy a few gi troopers and a few cobra troops a roadblock cobra commander and a couple others forget the rest

Jacob Casey

The Vehicles are tacky but nothing a little paint cant do, I might fix the characters too when I get my gi joe channel going on youtube i will put up some reviews my Name on youtube is Badassbubbabear97, But my joe page will be MrHalfbaked45 on youtube I will post a vid sometime this week Good pics

Werecat

Yeah, because there’s no such thing as a comfortable middle ground between all black and the obnoxious brightly colored figures and weapons from 1994. Sheesh… :rolleyes:

I just can’t help but get the impression that Hasbro can’t decide if it wants to make toys for kids or adults. Obviously what an eight year old wants in a toy, and what a 30 year old nerd collector wants in a toy are two very separate things.

The the 50 or so articulations points and bounty of accessories with each figures have pushed the price point on these figures above $10. At that price not many kids will be buying figures in large numbers. Not in this economy. And as we all know there simply isn’t enough nerd buying power out there to maintain a toy line by itself.

The business model Hasbro is using seem to be completely upside down. Success of a movie like GI Joe and its associated toy line requires Hasbro/Paramount to tap into 1980’s nostalgia. The first movie failed utterly in this. In order to sell toys to new adults and their children the characters in the movie and the associated toys need to be very similar in appearance to the original 1980’s toys (a la the 25th anniversary line). Unfortunately the 25th anniv line didn’t have the support of a movie. If the first movie had coincided with the 25th anniversary line, and if the characters in the movie had actually looked like the figures in the original toy line/cartoon we might have entered a new golden era of GI Joe in the way that Transformers has in recent years. Instead we’ve gotten……well you know what we’ve gotten.

This new movie seems to have worked harder to to tap into the 80’s nostalgia, but these toys still looks nothing like the 80’s toy line. This stuff is going to suffer the same fate as all the other superhero movie toy lines out this summer. It will be on the clearance aisle by the time school is back in session and then simply fade into oblivion.

Hasbro is a toy company. They have succeeded with Transformers and many other toy lines. Why can’t they produce a good, reasonably priced GI Joe line that will appeal to kids.

Anonymous

Toy line already hitting WalMart and Target here in AR

PavloRID

I don´t know how Wave 1 landed on Argentina so early. But that´s a good damn thing.
I´ve had some of vintage joes early in 90´s but somehow, they´ve gone.
Last year i pick and import a lot of Rise of Cobra, then a little of POC and 30.
But now, Retaliation (or at least what remains till ¿¿Next Year??..) i already have:

To much time to wait for 2013
But looking foward for some advantage
Today i´ve noticed that it will be difficult to bring past years joes (ROC-POC-30) to Argentina.
So it will be easily to bring some stuff looking foward to the movie (that deserves a million of doubts).
I mean retaliation being a “worldwide movie 3D event” (i rather prefer see it on my plasma) will be catapulting
some movie stuff (i really like, besides the background of any character, the fact that a toyline is being involved with the movie, i think it gives the character a lot of things, good or bad, but none of the ones that non participated in the movies gonna have it)
Well im looking foward to the Hiss Tank, think that the gunner rol made a difference, and also like the color which combines with the genuine version of blue Commander (i do not spend a word for the useless figures that came with this vehicules) and his soldiers: Cobra Trooper, Night Viper, alleys, i think that i ´ll be army building with these ones, i would like to get a lot of shock troopers or zombie vipers, but i think that it would be very difficult to import.
They are about a lot of Dollars (And Here In Argentina it´s a complicated term today: “The dollars”)
Let´s get some prices!!!
I don´t think that too much stores are bringing Retaliation today, i think i made a great goal buying this stuff mysef instead of any importator or delivery of anxiety. On the other hand, it cost me a lot. i got these at a cult toy store downtown in Buenos Aires and that stores not blooms in the far but beautiful souththland that in some way conserve a lot of good things, but this is a bless.}

And blessed, I recomend collectors not to take the giant or usless stuff from the blister let them there, and pick up the interesting things, power guns or blades, some of the gadgets can be funny. But the most important: they are a great update!
– Red Ninja: seeing worldwide reviews and renamed pages i think this is the guy, The forever Red Ninja and also the best articulated. Throw away the rigid Red Fang Ninja ROC.
– Snake Eyes: Fantastic Sculpt. Very accurate to both movies. and if he is a ninja, he would not necesarily have to carry a million things. Yes he misses a tiny backpack like Storm Shadow.
– Storm Shadow: i would prefer the one equal molded to Red Ninja, but today, that would be a dream so i get the Retaliation one and im gonna opening now.
– Cobra Troopers: Match with cobra Commander have a great stuff and the minor articulation on the legs is nos a world end scenario, also has a funny parachute, some great colors and black weapons.
– Kamakura (Dojo): i founded the ROC one last year and i was sure that it was the best version, that slowly changed when i open this set. Fullly a ninja commando, he´s more loaded than SN and have a lot of things, that mols is coor, and the machine gun is cool The head, great black gear and it´s bigger than ROC one.
– Roadblock (Dojo): He don´t need too much articulation on his legs, he is The Rock, he could only pins down Nighth Adder and Shadow Tracker together without using complete motion of his legs. wave 1 will never buy it that thing on his hand ruined it.
– Beachhead: He can carry some weapons, that´s a point, he is lack of colour, but still a great detail on him.
– Duke: I suggest to consider dessert ambus ROC. At least he s the only one whos got military suit and in the trailer i saw him with military theme.

Pursuit of Cobra & 30th Anniversary were a collector’s wet dream for G.I. Joes that ending prematurely. If it continued for at least a decent three years of the same quality and bigger vehicles, the complaints wouldn’t be as profound. I wish Hasbro could just make a decision on what the Joe brand should be; either a highly articulated figure based toy line that comes with unique accessories at an affordable price or a neon colored, low articulation figure based property with over-sized spring loaded contraptions for an unreasonable price.